James & Mae
by GabyGal
Summary: My version of the story of Albert Peterson's mother Mae and father, who I named James for this little fan piece. Chapter 4 coming soon. Not sure how long the whole thing will end up.
1. Chapter 1: That Peterson Boy

**Note: Here's a little side-project I'm working on in spare time, focusing on Albert J. Peterson's parents. His father is not given a name or even much of a mention by **_**Birdie**_** playwright Michael Stewart, but in my story I've decided to name him James, and I like to think that Albert's infamous middle initial "J" stands for James as well.**

_**James and Mae:**_

_**The Story of Albert Peterson's Parents**_

_**By Gabriella Giocomo**_

_**Chapter One**_

_New York City; October, 1925_

Ms. Ingrid Baker was sitting in her parlor, having her usual after-lunch wine glass and chat with her girls. To her left was her daughter, Rebecca, who could've been mistaken for her mother's younger twin. She was twenty-six and would soon move out of her mother's home, as she was engaged to a handsome doctor.

The other two girls were living in Ingrid's building (she'd bought a small boardinghouse for girls in New York City after Mr. Baker died) and had befriended her over the months they'd been there.

One was Diane, a sweet twenty-four year old with black curls. She was cheerful and always eager for these talks. She'd lived at Baker's Home for almost a year.

The other was unmistakably Mae, Ingrid's sister's daughter. She'd been living with her aunt and cousin at the building since she was fifteen. Her parents had died around the same time Mr. Baker had, and Ingrid was sort of like a second mother to her. She was easy to spot, as she was rather short and had bright red hair waving to her shoulders.

"Pour me another glassful, won't you?" she asked. She was twenty-three years old and had her own special brand of spunk. Other than that, her personality was a mix of mildly sweet and, unfortunately, incurably sour and sarcastic.

"Uh-uh-uh," Ingrid said, wagging a finger, "Remember what happened last time?"

Mae folded her arms. "What do you mean?"

"Rebecca told me what happened last week when you and the others from your high school days went up to the lake for the day –"

"Rebecca, you _didn't_!" Mae looked furiously at her cousin.

She faked innocence. "Oh, Mae, I only said how you were sitting with us and drinking that awful New Jersey stuff, and then how when all of us were resting and chatting under the stars –"

"_No_!"

"–That you and the Peterson boy were talking in the sand –"

"_No_!"

"And, goodness, how you were _giggling_!"

"_Rebecca_!" Mae cried desperately.

"And then – don't try to deny it, I _saw _you – you _kissed _him!" she finished defiantly. Diane tittered and Mae blushed fiercely.

Ingrid nodded. "And that _must_ have been a result of having too much to drink… unless you've actually taken a liking to that James." She smirked.

It had seemed impossible, but Mae turned even redder. "Oh, _please_," she said, "That's what it must've been - too many drinks. Anyway, he doesn't leave any inclination that he might make that obsession over me into something worthwhile…" She trailed off, resting her chin on her hand. She noticed the others looking at her and smiling knowingly, and she cleared her throat and sat up. "A-and besides, he's so _gawky_."

The girls snickered. After a minute, Diane stood and glanced out the window, staring at the street from three floors up. "Oh my gosh, there he is now!" she cried.

"Who?" asked the rest.

"James Peterson!"

"What?!" Mae shot up and ran to the window, peering out. Sure enough, there he was – tall James. Handsome James. Awkward, nervous, endearing James.

"Well, what could he be doing here?" Rebecca asked.

"Of course he's paying a visit to his dear little Miss Mae," Diane teased. But her target wasn't listening. She ran out the front door and down the stairs to the front hallway to greet her caller. First – a mirror check. Knee-length black dress smooth, faux pearl necklace secure, hair just right. She exhaled and opened the door at the three soft knocks.

"James!" she said, as if this was a complete surprise, "What are you doing here?"

"I… erm… I j-just wanted to st-stop by and… see if you would mind me visiting you and Mrs. Baker and the rest," he stammered.

_Oh, if he could only be bolder!_, Mae thought. "Fine," she said coolly. "Come on upstairs."

"Alright." He followed her up, watching her intently. Over their years at school, they were only acquaintances, but he'd always been enamored with her for reasons unknown, especially to the boys who'd convinced her to go places with them before. They'd all given her nicknames like "Merciless Mae" and "Queen Mae," and they'd all given James fair warning. Still, he was madly in love with her, and that was all that mattered to him.

Before she opened the door to her aunt's apartment, she whipped around and placed her pointer finger in the center of his chest, stabbing him with her fingernail. "Now you listen here, James Albert Peterson," she said in a sharp whisper, "You are not to bring up that night at the lake. It meant absolutely _nothing_." She was pretty good at lying. "And if you do, I swear I will take you up by the collar and toss you out."

James gulped. He nodded, scared into silence without taking into consideration that he was nearly two feet taller than little Mae, who could only carry out her threat if she had a sudden burst of extreme strength.

"Hello, James," the girls said slowly in unison when the two walked in, and then went into a fit of giggling. Except for Ingrid, that is, who simply smiled and looked the young man over. Even if Mae was completely opposed to it, they looked adorable beside each other.

"Have a seat, dear," Ingrid said. The three women shifted around the room to make the only empty places be on the two-person sofa. Mae glared at them, but James awkwardly sat down, staring at his shoes.

With a dramatic sigh, Mae joined him.

"So, James," Rebecca began, "What… or _who_… brings you here today?"

He glanced over at Mae. "W-well, I just thought I'd pay you ladies a visit."

"Oh, nobody in particular?" Diane asked carefully.

James looked at the woman beside him again. She'd told him not to bring up the night at the lake, but she hadn't said a thing about anything else. So, he gathered his courage. "…Mae. I came for Mae," he ventured, gazing at her as she went red as her hair. "I came for her," he continued shakily, "I wanted to… to ask you… if you'd go to the Andersons' party tonight. With me. You know my father was a good friend of Oliver, and I'm invited every year."

Oliver Anderson held a party at his apartment once every year in September. Timid James had wanted to ask Mae to it for years, and had finally found the nerve in himself to do it.

"Well, Mae, don't keep the poor boy waiting," Ingrid said. James wasn't quite a "boy," being twenty-three, same as Mae, and being so tall.

It didn't take Mae long to decide. "…Alright. I will."

"Yes, well… Thank you. I'll be 'round again at seven." He stood awkwardly, waving to the group while keeping his eyes on his redheaded maiden. Excited, he grinned to his reflection in the mirror once in the hall.


	2. Chapter 2: At Oliver Anderson's

_**Chapter Two**_

And at seven he did "come 'round" again. Ingrid answered his knock with a warm smile, presenting her niece to him.

"You look lovely, Mae," James said, taking her hand.

"Hmm," she said, blushing.

Ingrid tapped Mae's shoulder. "He looks handsome tonight, too," she insisted.

"Oh, yes… You look…" Mae was too embarrassed to finish her sentence, knowing that Rebecca and Diane and most of the other girls in the building were standing behind her aunt, listening.

"Thank you," James said. He walked her out and they crossed the street and walked to Mr. Anderson's in silence.

"James!" Oliver boomed when they showed up at the door. "And who is this?"

"This is –"

"I'm Mae… I'm James's girl."

James broke into a smile. He couldn't believe she'd said that.

"Well, bring this fine little lady inside!" Then Oliver winked and whispered, "A _very _fine little lady you've got there, James."

"I can hear you, you know," Mae said. "And thanks." She put a hand on her hip, smiled with pride, and put the other hand awkwardly around James, coming dangerously close to touching his waist. James gave a small shiver of excitement as they walked in among the crowd of people mingling in Oliver's apartment.

Many of James's father's old coworkers recognized James, smiled at him, did a double-take at the sight of him with a girl on his arm, and then walked away.

"I, erm… I can get us glasses of wine," James offered.

"Yes," Mae answered, a little too quickly. She blushed and blinked her eyelashes at James as he walked off. _Damn it, Mae, pull yourself together_, she thought. _But... you are his "girl" now, aren't you? Yes, that's right. I'll act however I want. I'll drink if I want to, I'll blush if I want to – I'll run up and give him the kiss of his life if I want to! Let "the Peterson boy" know just who he's dealing with._

James returned and handed her a glass filled halfway with red wine. He set his own glass down on the sidetable beside them. "So, um…"

"What are your intentions towards me, James?" Mae blurted. Surprised at herself, she gave a defiant look and stamped her foot for emphasis, trying to look like she had planned to ask this.

"W-what…" James coughed softly into his hand, staring down at Mae's eyes. They were gorgeous eyes. He was trapped. "Well, Mae, I… That's awfully old-fashioned, don't you think?"

"I _think _you ought to set your priorities straight, Mr. James Albert Peterson." Mae took a breath and looked James right in the eye. "Do you really like me, or are you stringing me along?"

From what James had heard, Mae was generally the member of a couple who strung someone along, never the man. But as he watched her feisty eyes flicker mischievously, he knew he couldn't win. "I like you," he declared proudly, so loud that others around him stared. James and Mae both turned red.

"Good," Mae replied decidedly, taking a sip of wine. "Because… I like _you_, James."

"…Good," he choked with a crack of his voice, trying and failing to match her demeanor. He, too, sipped his wine, and then took a match out of a matchbook from his pocket and stirred it around in the glass, attempting to get some control of himself. "Uh, Mae?" he asked as steadily as he could.

"Yes?" she asked, looking not at him but at his fingers as they twirled the match in the glass. _What an odd habit_, she thought.

"You really do look grand tonight, you know." He took the match out and studied it as if it were a bit of scientific evidence. "And every night."

"Look at me."

"Pardon?"

"Look at me," Mae repeated. "Look me in the eye and say that."

James blinked and cleared his throat as he deposited the match back into his glass, letting it sink. "…Fine," he said, straightening his posture and setting the glass down on the sidetable. He shakily put his hands on Mae's waist and stepped towards her, looking right down into her eyes. "You look grand."

Mae's harsh outer shell seemed to slip out from under her, and the action around her seemed to stop. She lifted herself on her toes, and her lips met his.

"Well, now!"

The sudden exclamation startled James so that he fell forward slightly and stepped on Mae's small foot. She grimaced and took a step away from him.

The voice had been Oliver's, and he smiled, amused, at the young couple.

"Oh, children, I'm terribly sorry… I was only happy to find that James has really found himself a lady-friend after so long," Oliver said.

Mae tilted her chin up defiantly at Oliver with a small smile. "We aren't children, you should be, and so am I," she replied, and walked into the next room, wine glass in hand.

Embarrassed, James followed her.

He looked around at the room he found himself in. It appeared to be Oliver Anderson's study, and nobody else was in it. Mae was sitting on an ornate dark-wood desk and looking around.

"Why'd you come in here?" James whispered (for it felt like the sort of place in which one would whisper). "Everyone else is in the next few rooms over."

"That's exactly why I came in here, James," Mae said, at normal volume. "Come here."

He did.

"Sit down."

He did, right beside her on the desk.

"Kiss me."

He did that as well. Again and again.


	3. Chapter 3: The Elopement

_**Chapter Three**_

"But James, the others are staying –"

"Mae, it's midnight. Imagine what your aunt will think," James said, asserting himself in a rare moment of strength.

"My aunt…" Mae gave this a thought. Perhaps he was right. Ingrid _would_ disapprove of such a late outing.

The couple wouldn't have stayed nearly as long if their mingling hadn't been postponed by, as James shyly called it, their "little session" of kissing on Oliver's desk. Those fifteen or so minutes had been much more interesting to them than anything that could've possibly been happening at the party a few rooms away.

Mae sighed. She was about to speak again when Oliver made his way over, clapping James on the back.

"I expected the two of you to tire out quickly, but here you are," he said. "Then again, I suppose that's the way of you children. You have no use for sleep."

Before his girl could protest once again that they were not children, James replied, "It _is_ getting late, isn't it?"

"I suppose you'll be escorting your young lady home, then," Oliver prodded with a smile.

James nodded and held his hand out to Mae. "…Well? D'you want me to _escort _you?"

Mae took his hand and smiled.

"Thank you, Mr. Anderson," James called as his redheaded sweetheart yanked him out the door, laughing as she went.

The relationship between James and Mae blossomed over the next year. Mae thought her meek beau to be incredibly grown-up and fascinating, with his own apartment and his love for literature. Even if she couldn't quite get herself as interested and enthusiastic as James was about his intellectual hobbies, a man to hold on to was not to be shooed away.

James was hopelessly and head-over-heels in love. His friends had no idea why, noting that Mae tended to boss him around a bit… that she always had to have her own way… that her Jewish family may clash with his Christian one… that she wasn't as smart as they thought James deserved. But he didn't care what others thought, not even his dear only sister Gertrude, who had not met Mae because "Good Old Gertie" was busy traveling around the world with her new husband and wouldn't be back for another year or so.

Completely under Mae's spell, James sold his late father's gold watch to get the last of the money he'd need in order to buy her something very special. More special than the shoes he'd given her, or the bracelets, or the new armoire for her room, or any other thing for her that he'd spent his average wages from Anderson's store on in the past months.

On the third of September in 1926, he met Mae outside of the Baker boardinghouse, got down on his left knee, and produced from his pocket his latest expenditure – a shimmering little prize of an engagement ring.

Mae looked down at his shaking hand and was uncharacteristically speechless. She'd noticed lately that James was able to bring out her softer, sweeter side in leaps and bounds.

"W-well, Mae?" James gulped and smiled with that adorable, nervous mouth of his. "Would you, erm… give me the pleasure of… of becoming Mrs. James Albert Peterson?"

She snatched the ring, slid it onto her finger in ecstasy, and threw her arms around his neck, kissing him. Under the grip of her embrace, James drooped with relief.

To avoid prodding from both families, the couple married secretly that evening in a courthouse, with Oliver Anderson as their jolly witness.

When Mae came home to the boardinghouse with James and all his worldly possessions (which wasn't much), she braced herself to fend against Aunt Ingrid, who, she thought, would surely be appalled at such a scandalous event.

But, when Mae and James walked into the Baker apartment, Ingrid looked up from the chair she was knitting in, glanced at their rings, smiled, and nodded.

"Good."

James looked at Mae with a surprised expression that was the kind one would make before fainting.

Mae's new husband remained on his feet, however, and moved in to Mae's room in the upstairs of the two-story dwellings (a perk of living in the landlady's apartment).

One of the many times they passed by the empty room next to Mae's as they moved James's boxes, James gave a little furtive, hopeful glance at his wife. The room had been vacated by Cousin Rebecca when she married her high-flying doctor, and was now open for possibilities. James had those possibilities on his mind. Little did he know that Mae was way ahead of him in planning their future. Now that she was married, she was secretly thrilled at the prospect of one of her dreams coming true – a baby. But, being unaware of James sharing this hope, she set the dream aside for the time being. Children would happen when they were destined to happen… and besides, Mae was sure that their passions for each other would result in plenty of opportunities for that destiny to be fulfilled.

_(__**Aside**_: _Wow, I went a little overboard there. The short version of that paragraph is that they both want kids… and, uh, that last part revealed the inner workings of the gutter in Mae's mind. Ahem… Yeah…_

_- Gaby)_


End file.
